Seeing a City In the Windows Of Its Shops; BEYOND THE BASTILLE, PARIS OF OLD

By Marlise Simons

Published: March 6, 1994

THE GLITTER of Paris, its polished styles and postures, never extended east of the Place de la Bastille. No great monuments arose here, and until the new opera house opened in 1989, elegant Parisians and tourists rarely came this way. Few do even today.

And so it is that streets, facades and shop windows here still have an old-Paris feeling, as do the charming passages and courtyards. The cabinet makers who have long worked this quarter remain in place, and so do many of the settlers from Brittany and Auvergne who came with their shops and bistros. Sprinkled among them are the colors of new, low-budget art galleries, thrift shops and rock cafes.

The liveliest mix fits in a small triangle between the Rue de la Roquette and the Rue de Charonne. Draw a circle here, starting on the corner of the Rue de la Roquette and enter the Rue de Lappe. The window of No. 6, Chez Teil, displays products from the Auvergne: sausages, cheeses, cassoulets, wines. Its outsized breads and hams would barely fit into a shopping bag. The bistro Les Sans-Culottes is worth peering into if only for its antique wooden furniture and bar. Take a peek at the fraying Bar a Nenette before it is renovated. At Le Balajo, the old music hall, people still dance the fox trot.

The medley continues on the Rue de Charonne with its array of galleries, upholsterers and framers. The little antique shops are without pretense. J. Neuhart, the baker at No. 7, states his case clearly in his window sign: this is an artisan who chooses his own flour and kneads his own dough, unlike "the baker whose bread is merely made from frozen, industrial dough."

At No. 26, an archway leads into a cobbled passage lined with the workshops of varnishers, a mirror framer, a lacquerer, all of them at work in full view of the street. Maison Fle has been crafting fine leather here for about 100 years. Watch its artisans apply thin hides, stretching them over desk tops or covering false books.

More art galleries line the Rue Keller, all on a modest scale. Yet the scale and the mood are changing. The low rents of the lofts and the many artisans' workshops have drawn photographers, designers and painters. Some Parisians predict that art and artists will eventually transform "la Bastille" because it is here, they reckon, that the verve and imagination of Paris has found a new home.